


Reliant

by freosan



Series: Reliant [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos is too submissive for his own good, Cecil is Mostly Human, Collars are not weird enough for Night Vale, D/s, Dom Cecil, M/M, Sub Carlos, Typical Night Vale Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 21:46:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1023768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freosan/pseuds/freosan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos has never needed anyone to take care of him. But he wants someone, and Cecil is doing it. Cecil is doing it <em>brilliantly</em>.</p><p>Carlos just hopes he's not going to fuck it up for himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reliant

Carlos can take care of himself. Since halfway through high school, he's supported himself; he's smart, attractive, and pretty good at people, so he's never had a problem getting a job or a place to stay. He's navigated New York City and tiny towns in nowhere, Arkansas, without ever getting in worse trouble than a fistfight or having the cops called on him. And then there is Night Vale.  
   
Carlos nearly dies five times the first week, and then he stops counting. He makes up a bloodstone circle when the police - the supposedly, but not really, secret ones - pay him a visit to tell him it's illegal not to have one. He talks them out of detaining him (of course secret police 'detain' someone rather than 'arrest' them - Carlos has heard that one before) but he knows he's on their watch list after that.  
   
He listens to the radio a lot.  
   
Cecil - Carlos has never heard anyone refer to him by more than one name, though that’s hardly the weirdest thing about the man - Cecil is the only one in the entire town who seems to have a handle, however tenuous, on what the fuck is going on. Listening to Cecil's show lets him know that pens have been banned and his team should switch to recorders and tablets, at least outside the labs. Cecil tells him when the Glow Cloud is angry and he should bring his reinforced umbrella, and when he is and is not allowed to talk about the moon in public.  
   
After a while, Carlos starts to feel like Cecil is speaking to him and him alone. And maybe he is. If Carlos takes a little too much pleasure in hearing Cecil's velvet voice say his name, well - that's for him to know.  
   
He hasn't nearly died in almost six months, and maybe that makes him foolhardy. The tiny underground city seems so unthreatening after everything else that's happened to him. Sure, Cecil had warned him about it, but Cecil was not in possession of all the facts. Carlos would be fine.  
   
Carlos was not fine, and almost as bad as nearly dying, he had to listen to Cecil's breakdown when Cecil found out that Carlos was not fine. That's why he calls, really. He does want to see Cecil, it's true, but he wants to prove that he's alive nearly as much.  
   
Even when they’re sitting right in each other’s space on the hood of his car, Carlos doesn't go any farther than touching Cecil's knee lightly. Cecil seems willing to stick to that limit, but he keeps making abortive movements as if to hug Carlos to him, or pull him into his lap, before he finally rests his head on Carlos's shoulder.  
   
Their first date is - Carlos enjoys it. Even with the shadow contamination and having to run off to Do Science, as Cecil would say, it's a good date. Cecil is a perfect gentleman. Carlos is not too much of an idiot. They make conversation. When they slink off into one of the non-forbidden parks, Cecil presses him back against a tree and buries his hands in his hair, kisses like he's worshipping Carlos's mouth.  
   
The stupid-ass line about a scientist being self-reliant is, he figures out later, a last-ditch effort to lie to himself about how much he needs Cecil already.  
   
The second date is similar, without the shadowy forces. The third date... the third date, Carlos asks if Cecil would like to come up to his apartment.  
   
Cecil accepts his invitation with a too-wide smile and a purr: "Of _course_ I would, Carlos." Carlos forgets to be nervous. He trusts Cecil. Of course he trusts Cecil. And it's very, very hard to remain self-conscious in the face of Cecil's overwhelming desire for him.  
   
Carlos offers a nightcap, because he has a dusty bottle of brandy after Cecil mentioned drinking it once, but they don't drink it. They get distracted once they settle on the couch. Cecil's decided that Carlos's lap is the best place to sit, and Carlos is not in any way arguing. Not with Cecil straddling his legs, looking down at him - Cecil usually can't; Carlos is a good six inches taller - and running his hands through Carlos's hair.  
   
Carlos closes his eyes and tilts his head back, and hears Cecil's sharp intake of breath. Cecil's fingers work through the ends of his hair so, so carefully, arranging it over his shoulders, stroking the skin of his neck lightly. 

"You're beautiful," Cecil breathes, his breath warm on Carlos's throat. Carlos feels his face go hot, but he doesn't open his eyes. "And you're _blushing_ , Carlos, look at that. Are you embarrassed?" His voice is a deep growl in Carlos's ear. "Or are you aroused?"  
   
Carlos, who has spent the last year listening to Cecil's voice in the dark and hoping he'll say something Carlos can get off to, makes a choked sort of noise and grabs at Cecil's thighs. 

Cecil laughs, low and pleased. "Do you like that, Carlos? Say yes. I want to say so many things to you."  
   
Carlos nods. "Yes. Fuck, yes, please."  
   
"I knew you'd be perfect, but I didn't know how perfect you would be," Cecil murmurs in his ear. And now Cecil really _is_ speaking only to him, audible to no one in the world except for Carlos, and using _that voice_. Carlos would not care right now if the angels who do not exist told him he'd died and gone to heaven. He would believe it and it wouldn't be the most important thing happening to him.  
   
"Are you still with me?" Cecil asks him. Carlos gets himself together enough to open his eyes, to find Cecil looking down at him from only inches away. Carlos thinks Cecil can see with those eyes, but he could be wrong; they're blank white with no pupils, flawless and alien. 

"I'm here, Cecil," he says. 

Cecil smiles. His tattoos are glowing with a soft white light, and Carlos is fascinated. He lifts his hand and traces the line of three eyes tattooed on Cecil's forehead, and it's Cecil's turn to blush, though his is purplish to Carlos's red.  
   
"I've never seen these glow before," Carlos says. He looks down, picks up Cecil's hand, and traces the runes etched on his inner wrist. More eyes, here, too, and when he touches them, they blink. Carlos looks on in surprise. "Or move."  
   
"I didn't know if you'd be okay with them," Cecil says softly, staring down at his own wrist. The eyes are shifting, looking towards Carlos’s fingertips.  
   
"They're beautiful," Carlos tells him. The tattoos get a little bit brighter. Carlos lifts Cecil’s hand and kisses the inside of his wrist.  
   
"My wonderful Carlos," Cecil says. His blank eyes are fixed on Carlos's mouth, even when Carlos lets Cecil's hand rest again in their laps. Carlos, deliberately, licks his lips; Cecil _growls_ and kisses him again.

They don’t talk for a little while after that. Carlos has not made out with anyone in some time, but he doesn’t think even the wildest sexual history would have prepared him for Cecil. Cecil _focuses_. Cecil teases and laves a spot just below Carlos’s jaw with his tongue until Carlos thinks that it is the only point of sensation in his life, and then bites him, gentle, with the sharpest teeth Carlos has ever seen outside of a shark. Cecil buries his fingers in Carlos’s hair, then tangles them, then _pulls_. Cecil unbuttons Carlos’s shirt while both his hands are still in Carlos’s hair and pushes it down his shoulders, trapping his hands at his sides. Cecil licks a hot line over Carlos’s collarbone and down his chest, and leaves a bruise where he bites above Carlos’s left nipple. Cecil unzips Carlos’s jeans and works his hand under Carlos’s boxers and grins like he’s won a prize when his long, thin fingers wrap around Carlos’s painfully hard cock.

Carlos shakes, and curses, and his nails dig into Cecil’s pleather-clad thighs, and says “yes, yes, please, _Cecil_ ”, over and over again. He does not move. He only looks up at Cecil in wonder, desperately willing him to kiss him again, but accepting when Cecil does not. Kissing Cecil himself doesn’t occur to him. Not when Cecil is looking at him, his face a reflection of what Carlos thinks is the same feeling as looking at stars or at atoms. Like Carlos is as important as the universe or its building blocks.

Carlos does not know how to respond to that kind of onslaught, and he doesn’t. He just reacts, and clings to Cecil. He’s safe with Cecil. Cecil will take care of him.

\---

Cecil does, and it is glorious, and when it is over Carlos burrows into Cecil’s chest - not literally, that would be too much for a third date, just rests his cheek against Cecil’s skin and listens to his heart beat - and says, “thank you.”

“Why are you thanking me?” Cecil asks, the hint of a smile in his words. Carlos likes his voice from here, feeling it rumble up through his chest. 

“That was amazing,” Carlos says.

Cecil hums, and Carlos drifts a little, fully ready to fall asleep. But Cecil is still talking. “You did enjoy it? I wasn’t sure. Not that it wasn’t exquisite, Carlos, because it was, but - you know you’re allowed to, to...”

Carlos looks up at Cecil, stirred from his comfortable resting place by the nervousness in Cecil’s voice. “What’s wrong?” he asks. 

Cecil is blushing purple, and all his tattoos have gone pink. “I know I can be pushy, dear Carlos, and I don’t want you to think you have to just go along with everything.”

Carlos has gotten this talk before, though Cecil is a lot more polite about it than some people he could name, and his stomach turns over in embarrassment. Of course Cecil doesn’t want Carlos to lie there like a dead fish. Cecil isn’t actually psychic; he doesn’t know what’s happening in Carlos’s brain. And it’s not fair to expect him to take charge _all_ the time.

“Oh,” Carlos says. “Okay.”

\---

Carlos tries, he really does. He initiates more; once he even pushes Cecil against the wall, the way Cecil has done to him so many times, and drops to his knees with intent. But before he’s even got Cecil’s fly undone, Cecil is pulling him back up and telling him he doesn’t have to, that he’s too far away, that Cecil wants to touch him. And then Cecil’s hand is in his pants and they’re rocking together, slowly, Cecil holding him close, and Carlos is not arguing, but he is very, very confused.

\---

Dating is both easier and harder than Carlos expected. Easier because it’s _Cecil_ ; because they always have something to talk about, even if it’s just what unnatural disaster has befallen the town today; harder because Carlos has never stayed with someone for longer than about three months and he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

Sometimes he thinks he should cut and run. It’s his usual M.O. when things get difficult in a relationship. Two dates in, he knows if he wants to stay with a person or not, and he usually does - he’s a lover at heart, he thinks, or maybe he’s just affection-starved. By four or five dates in, though, they’ve usually started saying things like ‘maybe you should be on top this time’ and ‘I can’t make _all_ the decisions here, Carlos’.

After the first time, Cecil never says anything like that. Cecil just looks at him, smiles, and whatever he decides on is exactly what Carlos needs at the time. And then he apologizes for being too pushy, and Carlos never knows how to tell him he doesn’t have to. But it reassures him just enough that he doesn’t leave.

Carlos has always had a problem with what he thinks of as ‘biological requirements’. Sleeping and eating just aren’t all that important to him. He remembers that he has to get at least three hours of sleep a night, one meal a day, and two good runs a week, or his hands shake and his brain gets foggy, no matter how much coffee he drinks. Beyond that, he doesn’t think about it. It’s not like he has any time to relax.

With Cecil, he does relax. And that’s great, it really is, but sometimes he invites Cecil over to watch a movie and wakes up hours later with his head in Cecil’s lap and static crackling and screaming on the television. Carlos always gets up immediately and apologizes, but the third time it happens, Cecil asks him if maybe he’ll consider getting a few hours more sleep the night before if they’re going to be seeing each other.

The night before their next date, Carlos carefully sets an alarm on his phone. He leaves the lab at 8:15 and wakes up before the mistimed sunrise. He feels kind of amazing, and not just because he’s fully rested for the first time in months.

That’s not the only thing Carlos catches himself doing for Cecil, either: he brings him coffee when he gets into the station (Cecil goes in late; Carlos is usually about town at that time anyway), hangs up Cecil’s coat when they walk into Cecil’s apartment together. One time, they get caught in a weird, green rain on their way back from Big Rico’s, and when they get inside, Carlos is helping Cecil get his clothes off and fetching him a towel and starting laundry before the green can permanently ruin Cecil’s pale purple shirt, and Cecil has to point out that Carlos is dripping on his own carpet and his lab coat is never going to be the same.

Cecil never comments on it except to thank him. Carlos figures it’s just enough to the normal side of the spectrum that Cecil can let it go. People do nice things for their boyfriends, right? If his stomach flutters with more than just affection when Cecil smiles at him in thanks, well, Cecil doesn’t have to know.

\---

It’s almost a month before Carlos fucks up badly. All the sidewalks have started shrieking whenever anyone steps on them, which happens about every third Tuesday, so Carlos doesn’t think much of it until one of the sidewalk cracks opens up a few inches and yells at him with a mouth full of void and teeth. That’s enough to make him jump, back away, and then grab samples, over the gnashing of the sidewalk. He calls Cecil to let him know the sidewalks are angrier than usual and heads back to the lab.

On his way there, he comes across one of the Boy Scouts investigating another of the mouths. The kid nearly loses a foot tripping into it; would have if not for Carlos snatching him back, or at least so Cecil says later over the airwaves. Carlos doesn’t like that thought, and he really doesn’t like the way his tiny chips of sidewalk cement have grown their own tiny mouths. 

So, yeah. He misses the date he and Cecil planned for that night. And he doesn’t call Cecil, because he’s already called Cecil about the sidewalks, and he completely forgets what else he might have wanted to mention to Cecil in the excitement and, increasingly, worry over the apparently semi-living concrete of Night Vale.

Cecil calls him, the next morning, when Carlos is staring grainy-eyed at the last undissolved and un-dissected chip, which is disconcertingly staring back. Carlos thinks it is out for vengeance and honestly, he wouldn’t blame it very much. He’s no closer to figuring out what the hell’s going on with it, but he thinks he might have an idea how to make it inert again; and then his phone rings.

The battery’s almost dead, but Carlos picks up anyway. “Hello?”

“Carlos!” Cecil sounds rough, but relieved. “I was worried. I hadn’t heard anything since the report about you saving the Boy Scout!”

“I’m fine, I’ve been in the... lab... _shit_ ,” he says, remembering. Reservations. They had _reservations_. “Shit. Cecil, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Carlos. I’m just glad you’re safe.”

And, Carlos knows, that means Cecil _is_ okay with it and he’s been forgiven and Cecil isn’t going to bring it up again, unless Carlos does it again, which he knows he’s going to, eventually. It does not mean that he needs to panic.

“I’ll make it up to you. Promise,” he says. “Come to my place tonight? I’ll cook.” 

“Are you sure? I don’t want to get in the way of scientific progress,” Cecil says. Sincerely, even.

“I don’t deserve you,” Carlos says fervently. “I’m sure. I’ll make tamales.” He’s panicking. Tamales are panicking food.

“With imaginary corn?”

“Whatever you want, Cecil.”

Carlos makes the tamales, which he’s perversely proud of as being nearly as strange as some of the stuff he’s gotten in restaurants around here - the imaginary corn remains invisible when cooked, so that the tamales themselves look like floating specks of spices around floating lines of pork and cheese - and lays out the table. When Cecil comes in, Carlos pulls out his chair for him.

Cecil raves about his cooking, and Carlos tries to accept the compliments. Cecil asks about the experiments Carlos was doing, and Carlos goes off about the sudden appearance of deadly mouths in the sidewalk, and is only somewhat deflated when Cecil tells him that that happens about every third Tuesday when the mayoral bloodstone circle is appropriately aligned with the constellation Pisces. The results he got are still interesting, but he feels a lot more embarrassed about having skipped out on their date once he knows that everyone’s used to that particular danger and he could have replicated the experiment in eight months or so.

When Carlos gets up and starts collecting the plates, Cecil picks his up. “I’ll do the dishes,” he announces. 

“You don’t have to, Cecil. I’ve got it,” Carlos says. He looks on in mild despair while Cecil piles his dish and the glasses on the serving platter and carries the whole mess to the kitchen.

“But you cooked,” Cecil says, like that means anything. “Let me.”

And Carlos can’t really not do anything Cecil says, and Cecil won’t let him help, so he ends up hovering around pointing out towels and dish soap until Cecil tells him to go sit in the living room, Cecil will be done here in a moment. Carlos sits on the edge of the couch and waits.

Cecil comes back out of the kitchen, smiling, and sits on the couch next to Carlos, turning to him. Carlos has had enough time to prepare himself, and he slides to the ground at Cecil’s feet before Cecil can say a word. On his knees in front of Cecil, he feels almost instantly calmer. Better. He licks his lips and leans forward, relaxing a little more when he sees that Cecil’s already tenting the front of his striped dress pants. He gets Cecil’s zipper down and his hand around Cecil’s shaft, pleased when he hears Cecil’s sharp intake of breath, and then...

“Wait. Carlos, wait.” Cecil’s hands are on his face, his shoulders, pushing him back, and Carlos feels the familiar knot of nerves in his chest again.

“Why are you doing this?” Cecil asks.

Carlos is pretty sure that _I need to do one thing for you that you won't automatically reciprocate_ isn’t the answer Cecil wants to hear. “Because I want to,” he says, and that’s true, too.

Cecil looks at him for another long moment, his hands cool on Carlos’s face, but his cock right there and hard and hot, and Carlos can’t stand it anymore. “Please, Cecil,” he says. “Please let me - let me do this for you.”

Cecil’s eyes, even the tattooed ones on his arms, fly open. He’s quiet for a long moment, long enough that Carlos worries wildly that he broke him somehow. Then: “I told you you were perfect,” Cecil says, and lets him go.

Carlos dives forward and kisses the tip of Cecil’s cock. This, he can do. He’s not a porn star, but he knows what works. He has to take Cecil’s hand and put it in his hair, but once his fingers are there Cecil pulls, gently and first and then harder, and Carlos moans and sinks down farther along Cecil’s shaft. He wants to taste Cecil; wants to know that he’s making Cecil feel good. Cecil is talking, of course, and Carlos savors every word - _perfect_ Carlos, _amazing_ Carlos, _good_ Carlos. And then Cecil is just panting, and Carlos locks eyes with him at the top of his stroke, sucks harder, hopes that Cecil can see how much Carlos loves it when Cecil comes into his mouth. 

Carlos licks Cecil clean and stays on the floor, his head pressed against Cecil’s thigh, breathing heavily. Cecil’s petting his hair again. Carlos doesn’t look up. Right now, he is exactly where he wants to be. 

“What was that about, Carlos?” Cecil asks, and Carlos reluctantly pulls his face away from Cecil’s leg.

“I wanted,” Carlos starts, then blushes. “I wanted to.”

Cecil smiles a little. “That is what you said,” he says. “It was wonderful. But why are you still on the floor?”

Carlos sighs and starts to get up, but Cecil’s hands are on his shoulders, pressing down lightly. Carlos stares at him. “You can stay there if you want to,” Cecil reassures him, and that’s all Carlos needs to drop back to the carpet.

Cecil is still touching him, thank God, and he keeps licking his lips and almost saying something, then stopping. Carlos braces himself for ‘that was too weird’ or ‘this isn’t going to work’.

What he gets is, “Carlos, are you submissive?”

Rather than saying anything, Carlos looks at Cecil, trying to divine the right answer. He may as well have shouted it from the top of City Hall. Cecil nods like he’s confirming something he already suspected.

“You should have said,” Cecil tells him. “I thought you might be, but then I thought, ‘Cecil, you’re only projecting, he couldn’t possibly be interested in power exchange, he’s not even from here...’” Cecil has taken his hands away from Carlos’s shoulders to punctuate his words with gestures, and Carlos feels the loss more than he expected to.

"People have... did you say power exchange? People do that outside Night Vale, too," Carlos protests.  
   
"It’s not common,” Cecil says.

Carlos nods. 

“It’s different here. Enough of us here are held in thrall to forces beyond our control that we're comfortable with the idea of possession," Cecil explains. "You're not running from some kind of demonic or otherworldly influence, are you? This is all you?"  
   
"Uh, as far as I know," Carlos says.  
   
Cecil strokes a bit of Carlos's hair behind his ear. Carlos leans into his hand.  
   
“Cecil,” he says slowly. “Are you telling me you’re alright with... this?” He hopes that’s enough to get across his meaning, because he doesn’t know that he’s got any more description than that in him.

“I am _much more_ than ‘alright’ with this,” Cecil says, leaning down over him, and, oh, he’s got both hands around the back of Carlos’s neck now, and his tattoos are an intense purple. Carlos feels shaky, even though he's sitting down, like maybe suddenly he can feel the earthquakes. Whole huge tectonic plates of his worldview realigning themselves.

"You’re sure?" Carlos asks, stupidly.  

"I’m sure," Cecil says. He pulls Carlos closer, kisses his hair.  
   
Carlos takes a breath, relaxes, closes his eyes. Cecil is everywhere around him, warm and enclosing. Carlos feels like a smothered flame; like he was burning too wildly and too fast, and then he was covered, and now he's smoldering embers. Cecil holds him there for a moment and then puts his hands on Carlos's shoulders to sit him up. Carlos keeps his head bowed.  
   
"Masters of us all, you're beautiful like this," Cecil breathes. "Look at me, Carlos, I want to see your face." Carlos picks his head up, looking at Cecil over the rims of his glasses. "Look at you. How have you gotten along this long?"

Carlos hesitates.

Cecil shakes his head. “We should have negotiated earlier,” he says. “You’ve been taking everything I suggest as an order, haven’t you.” 

Carlos nods. “I needed something,” he admits.

“The next time you need something,” Cecil suggests. No - orders. Carlos can feel the weight of it. “Ask.”

“Yes, Cecil,” Carlos says. Cecil grins.

\---

Cecil brings him to the radio station. Carlos brings his Geiger counter and a few other instruments, but those are only an excuse; what he’s really there for is to kneel under Cecil’s desk, sometimes holding Cecil’s feet, mostly just being there. He does take the occasional reading - because the results he’s getting are fascinating - and every two hours or so Cecil makes him get up to fetch coffee or lunch, which he does happily. 

It’s not that he takes a lot of joy in putting together sandwiches from the strangely stocked station fridge, but the way Cecil’s face lights up when Carlos comes back with exactly what Cecil asked for is the best thing Carlos has ever seen. Carlos sits at his feet again and Cecil feeds him bits of sandwich and fruit while he does his paperwork.

Carlos had never realized how long Cecil spent broadcasting and how much it took out of him. He seems to be on air for hours, though Carlos has never heard more than a half-hour show at a time. The news is different, too. Carlos always hears about Old Woman Josie and John-Peters-you-know-the-farmer, Simone Rigadeau and Leanne Hart, people he knows, people he talks to often. In the morning Cecil talks about Miss Ferdinand at Night Vale Elementary, Jill-MacGuyver-you-know-the-baker, and Des Barrow who lives in a sewer across from the library and seems to have their head on straighter than most of the people in town. 

There are times during the broadcast when Cecil goes... dark, is the only way Carlos has to put it; his voice is deeper, his tattoos are black instead of bright, and he talks about the meaninglessness of existence and how small we all are, all of us, in the face of a cold, uncaring universe. Carlos leans his head on Cecil’s knee and Cecil goes to commercial and bends down to hug him for twenty-three beautiful seconds. When Cecil goes live again, he says that the infinite void is not really so unbearable, if you have someone to share it with.

\---

They are lying together, tangled, Cecil’s leg draped over Carlos’s hip, his arms wrapped around Carlos’s head. Carlos is safe and warm and breathing in the scent of Cecil’s skin, salt and dust and ozone. Cecil is petting Carlos’s hair.

“Would you like it if I marked you?” Cecil asks, out of nowhere. Carlos feels his heart skip a beat.

“Marked me how?” he asks.

Cecil cups Carlos’s cheek and tilts his head up. “I know it’s not the usual thing, but...” he raises his hand. There is an eye tattooed there where Carlos has never seen an eye before. He blinks at it; it blinks back. Behind his hand, Cecil is blushing purple. “I got this yesterday, and, you know, they take a little time to settle. I can give it to you, if you want it.”

Carlos has a few hundred questions about _that_ , but what comes out of his mouth is, “Yes. Please.”

Cecil gets the tender, gratified look that Carlos is learning to understand as ‘Carlos did something perfect and wonderful’. It is _weird_ , having an expression like that directed at him. Carlos is not used to it and he doubts he ever will be. 

“Oh, I hoped you’d say that.”

“How does it -” Carlos starts, but Cecil takes his hand and interlaces his fingers with Carlos’s, and Carlos watches as the eye blinks gently and slides up Cecil’s skin. When it touches Carlos’s finger, it burns like a hundred tiny static shocks, but Cecil’s grip is firm on Carlos’s hand and he doesn’t pull away.

When the eye is fully on the back of Carlos’s hand, Cecil releases him, and Carlos looks at the tattoo in wonder, and it starts glowing a deep, luminous purple. Carlos grins. “It’s perfect, Cecil,” he says quietly. 

“You’re perfect,” Cecil says automatically, and catches Carlos’s chin before he can duck his head in embarrassment, and kisses him.

\---

The tattoo settles within a week at the back of Carlos’s neck, peeking out from above Carlos’s lab coat collar when his hair is up. Carlos shows Cecil when he brings that morning's coffee to the radio station, and Cecil smiles when he sees it. Carlos can see the smile even though Cecil’s behind him: Carlos knew it had found its position when it had started transmitting visual data. Apparently this is normal.

Cecil stands, grabs Carlos's shoulders, and turns him around for a better look. Carlos learns that a benefit of his new vision is that he can see what Cecil looks like when he has Carlos pinned. It's stunning.

“They go where they’re wanted,” Cecil says, petting the skin below it with one finger; Carlos is still getting used to seeing out the back of his neck, and shifts uncomfortably when Cecil’s fingertip gets too close to the linework. 

“I always thought it’d be nice to have eyes on the back of my head,” Carlos says, a little lighter than the situation warrants.

Cecil doesn't seem to mind his flippancy; his smile only gets a little more tender. “I’m glad I can see it.”

Carlos bends his head, and closes his eyes - all three of them - so Cecil can press a soft kiss to each.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by the fact that I thought the tag "Cecil is a service top basically" needed a Carlos counterpart.
> 
> Carlos in this fic is played by [Carlo Porto](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-E77y4SFD6co/T42bOy5ezsI/AAAAAAAADng/a_hXACRtg9o/s1600/carlo+porto.JPG), Brazilian model.
> 
> A thousand thanks to my beta [Sky](http://www.fanfiction.net/~seraphina2), who gave me a title, made me cut all the convoluted sentences, and reminded me that hard returns have a place in my life.


End file.
